| 1. Introduction
The fallout from the banking crisis
has now reached the local government sector. Whilst local authorities
may be innocent of any direct involvement
in the causes of the nation’s economic problems, they are large
consumers of the country’s wealth and cannot be exempted from general
spending reductions.
As the majority of Councils’ income is provided via government
grants, they are forced to dance to the government’s tune. Councils
do have to do what the government wants, but how they do that is for
them to decide. The principle requirement placed on local authorities
is to manage their affairs in the best interests of the local population.
It is the local population which is the key group in this requirement,
not a political party or a small group within a political party or a
group of local government Officers. However, there is a great temptation
for those who have local power to use it in their own interests. Occasionally,
this results in a major scandal, such as occurred with the manipulation
of the housing policy of Westminster Council a few years ago. Large scale
policy distortions, as in the Westminster case, are rare, but it is quite
likely that minor adjustments are not.
In theory, the local government scrutiny system should act as a defence
against the manipulation of policy by special interest groups within
the power structure. The effectiveness of this defence is critically
dependent on the willingness of scrutiny committee members to challenge
policy proposals. A rubberstamp mentality within the committees can result
in only superficial investigation of what is proposed. Committee members
are often reluctant/unable to carry out the time consuming research which
is necessary to fully understand the implications of the decisions that
they are being asked to endorse.
Within the borough of Camden, expectations of open, unbiased decision
making have been slowly eroded and the widespread belief is that the
system has been severely damaged. As much is shrouded in secrecy, the
true extent of this damage is unknown to the general public. It is in
this atmosphere that Camden Council decided to consult the residents
of the borough on its future public library policy.
The decision to consult the public has been represented
as a magnanimous gesture by a benevolent Council. This is not actually
the case. Although
Camden Council is not legally obliged to consult its population, the
report from the “Inquiry into the Public Library Service Provided
by Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council” (Ref. 1) made it quite
clear that any Council that did not do so had better have a very good
reason. Effectively, Camden had little choice in the matter.
The Wirral report has emphasised the importance of effective
consultation in arriving at a solution to a difficult problem. For
any consultation
to be truly effective, it has to be unbiased in all respects. Unfortunately,
consultations run by Camden Council rarely meet this criterion and have
been a major reason for the public’s loss of confidence in the
Council. It is doubly unfortunate that Camden Council believed that it
could continue with its established bad practice, when consulting on
an issue which has been proved to be close to the Camden population’s
heart.
Camden’s consultation on its libraries policy was
very quickly declared as flawed and is now regarded as being a blatant
attempt to
obtain the result that a small group of senior Council Officers desired.
Attempts to restrict the availability of printed explanatory notes and
the in-built impossibility of disagreeing with the Council propositions
in the on-line survey are only two of the problems associated with the
consultation process.
To arrive at a detailed judgement on whether or not Camden
Council has attempted to run an honest libraries consultation, it is
necessary to
have a reliable yardstick to measure it by. The Market Research Society
(MRS) and The Local Authorities Research & Intelligence Association
(LARIA) have produced a very useful guide (Ref. 2) which can be used
for this purpose. This document recommends that care be taken with independence,
clarity, fairness and respondents rights in the design of the consultation.
In each of these categories, Camden has a case to answer.
Within the independence category, the three way relationship
between the Council, the Council’s market research consultants (Red Quadrant)
and the public is critical. In this, the public is very much at a disadvantage.
In an attempt to ensure fair play, the Market Research Society has published
a code of conduct for its members (Ref. 3). Here, there is a specific
requirement which states that “Researchers shall balance the needs
of individuals, clients and their professional activities”. Red
Quadrant does not appear to have tried very hard to live up to this requirement.
The wishes of the client have dominated and warped the professional judgement
of the researchers. This has produced a contravention of a further requirement – “Researchers
shall protect the reputation and integrity of the profession”.
It should be noted, in this context, that library users in Brent are
similarly unhappy with the Red Quadrant designed consultation in that
borough.
In view of the CPLUG judgement that Camden Council was
only seeking to legitimise a decision that had already been taken by
Camden’s
Officers, it may appear puzzling that CPLUG held a large public event
to publicize the consultation. CPLUG’s motivation in doing so was
to ensure that the Council understood that there was widespread concern
in the borough about its intensions – residents were watching closely
what was happening. This was not a small, local difficulty which could
be safely ignored. The 6000 responses which the Council has received
have demonstrated this very obviously.
Camden’s Officers’ clear intension was to use the consultation
as an endorsement of their policy proposals and, to this end; they hindered
the activities of library user groups, when these groups set out to ascertain
the degree of support for keeping the borough’s libraries open.
In spite of this, approximately 4,400 signatures have been obtained for
petitions supporting this policy. It should be noted that these signatures
were obtained in a shorter time and with infinitely smaller resources
than those used by Camden Council. In addition, there was no need for
large publicity events, because it was an activity driven by the people,
for the good of the people.
Widespread public concern and a desire to avoid the closure of any public
library have been demonstrated beyond argument in Camden. However, CPLUG
has never suggested that Camden Council does not have a financial problem
which needs to be dealt with. If the Council had bothered to listen,
it would have heard this statement, loud and clear, from the very beginning
of the current libraries argument. An olive branch was being offered
and was ignored. Instead, the Council preferred to impose a flawed and
badly executed consultation on its electors. Which organisation acted
responsibly and which organisation acted like a gang of juveniles determined
to dominate the playground, whatever the cost?
The olive branch has been trampled under an unheeding
Council’s
feet, but we still have the basic funding problem to solve. All the bluster
from cabinet members has not helped one bit and the self-satisfied, hectoring
tone of much of it has probably been counter-productive. Whatever the
Council’s strategy was (assuming that there was a strategy), it
has failed miserably. It is time for a rethink.
2. The CPLUG Survey
There is a need for an honest survey of the views of
Camden’s
residents on the future structure of the borough’s library service.
CPLUG has never argued against this. The Camden survey and the anti-closure
petitions have been useful in establishing that there is great interest
in the library issue within Camden’s population and that a library
closure policy would be deeply unpopular.
Because of its design problems, the Camden survey is
distrusted and it will be difficult to use it to justify any change
in the way that
Camden’s libraries are run. Nevertheless, there is possibly some
useful information to be derived from it on the design methods to be
avoided in future surveys.
CPLUG considered the Camden survey to be a missed opportunity to obtain
the genuine views of Camden’s population on how to save money
within its library service and it decided to attempt to rectify the
situation. This was not easy due to the hindrance of the Camden library
service. However, CPLUG did succeed in obtaining 169 responses to a
detailed questionnaire which allowed respondents to disagree with propositions
or to just say that they did not know. Agreement / disagreement with
a proposition was not encouraged in any way.
There were two objectives of the CPLUG survey
• To ascertain the public’s reaction to the
Camden survey (first 9 questions).
•
To set out as many of the options as possible that the Camden survey
had avoided and to discover which of them, if any, were favoured (questions
10 – 20).
The results of the survey are given in the last page of this report,
with graphical presentations in the two preceding pages.
3. Conclusions.
3.1 General
That the survey sample has been successfully restricted by Camden to
169 is unfortunate, as this may have put a question mark over the conclusions
drawn from it. However, as there was no question which did not have
a decisive response in one direction, this is not the case. Further,
most of the preferences expressed by Camden residents are quite predictable
from the public debate which has been occurring in the local media.
Conclusions can, therefore, be drawn from this survey with confidence.
3.2 Reactions to Camden Survey
It is somewhat worrying that only 70% of Camden survey respondents were
certain that they had read both the questionnaire and the explanatory
notes which put the questions into context. However, the fact that
less than half of respondents believed that they completely understood
the questions should be of great concern.
Approximately 2/3rds of respondents believed that the
key proposals put forward by Camden within questions 1 – 3 of
its survey were not comprehensive. It may be claimed that subsequent
questions in the
Camden survey expanded the number of options. However, unless respondents
were able to carry out considerable research to discover the other options,
the only additional option which these questions allowed was that of
volunteer run libraries. This very obvious bias in the Camden questionnaire
is one of the prime reasons for the CPLUG survey being carried out.
In general, Camden residents are opposed to all of the Camden key proposals;
with the exception of increased charges and reduced management, maintenance,
furniture, computer, local studies costs.
Ii is totally unsurprising that library closures have been completely
rejected by the vast majority of respondents (82.8% of total replies).
Perhaps the most interesting outcome from this question is the fact that
3.6% of respondents actually supported the closure option. The reasons
for this support are beyond the scope of the CPLUG survey, but may be
worth pursuing. Although the rejection of the library closure option
was the most marked, the degree of all other rejections were similarly
decisive (range: staff reductions 65% to reduction in opening hours 71%).
The single key Camden option approved of by the public is the small
changes collection covering library charges, management, local studies,
maintenance, furniture and computers. With 58% of respondents in favour
of this proposition, compared with 30.2% against it, there was clear
approval of this item. However, the 30.2% of respondents who oppose the
views of the majority make up the largest minority group in this part
of the survey. This is possibly an indication that a great deal of care
will be necessary in implementing this strategy.
3.3 Response to the Expanded Option List
Whilst only one of the Camden key options was approved
of by the borough’s
residents, they were in favour of eight of the eleven propositions given
in this part of the CPLUG survey. In ascending popularity, these were:
• Camden Library Service run by a London-wide Trust 51.5% “yes” *
•
Libraries run by management boards of local people 52.1% “yes”
•
Merger of all Camden Council with a neighbouring borough or boroughs
53.8% “yes” *
•
A Trust running Camden Library Service 63.3% “yes” *
•
Merger of the Camden Culture and Environment Dept. 75.2% “yes” *
with that of a neighbouring borough or boroughs
•
Camden libraries run by a mix of professional and unpaid volunteer staff
77.5% “yes”
•
Merger of Camden Library Service with that of a neighbouring borough
78.7% “yes” *
•
Release money from Camden’s reserves 85.2% “yes” *
* As there will be very large changes to the library services organisation
associated with these options, the question assumed that they would only
be acceptable, if library closures were avoided.
It should be noted that the “approved” options
are not necessarily mutually exclusive and some can be combined to
enhance service to the
public and/or increase cost reduction.
The replacement of Camden Council with a Trust for the
management of the borough’s libraries is approved of by the majority
of residents, but other options are more enthusiastically supported.
This low level
support also applies to the proposition that libraries should each have
a management board of local residents.
The responses to the three merger propositions show that
the Camden public is definitely in favour of the merger concept. However,
while
support for a library service or Culture & Environment Dept. merger
with other boroughs is substantial, this does decline when the scope
of the merger is increased to cover the whole borough.
By far, the most popular option is the proposition that
Camden should release some money from its reserves to reduce or eliminate
the cost
reductions demanded by Camden’s cabinet. This suggestion has been
roundly criticised by cabinet members and by some backbench Councillors
on the grounds that it is a misleading question, because this sum of
money is not a reserve and it has mostly been allocated already.
The title of the reserve is actually Camden’s title and it is
the only one on offer to identify the funds. It is certain that a more
accurate title would be “Sacred Cow Fund”, to indicate that
the massive amounts of money within it are intended for those projects
that the Council is forced to fund by the government and those projects
which are highly favoured by the Council. The £289 million which
was quoted in the question was taken from Camden’s audited accounts
for 2009/10 and was the only value available at the time that the CPLUG
survey questions were compiled. In common with all balance sheet items,
this only gives a snap-shot of the fund’s value on 31st March 2010.
An audited value for 31st March 2011 is not yet available, but can be
expected to be large. The fact that a large proportion of the money in
this pot has been allocated to favoured projects is only partially relevant,
as money continuously flows into it to replenish expenditure from it.
The very small sums of money (in relative terms) necessary to completely
eliminate the library problem will be required from 2012 i.e. in the
future and not now. Therefore, simplistic arithmetic supposedly showing
that there is no possibility of any money from the reserves (Sacred Cow
Fund) being available for this purpose is misleading. Nevertheless, it
can be expected that there will be extreme reluctance by Officers and
cabinet to use any part of it. Camden’s public libraries are traditionally
not sacred cows, but sacrificial goats.
Of the disliked options, the extreme case of libraries run by volunteer
staff outside Council control is the proposition most disliked. However,
adding Camden Council control only improves matters slightly. The simple
addition of volunteers to paid staff is as far as most respondents are
prepared to go in this direction, but this limited change would be approved
by a large proportion (77.5%) of the population.
The final disapproved proposition of a commercially run
library service is actually approved of by a substantial minority (29.6%)
of respondents.
Nevertheless, with 51.5% of residents disliking the option, it is obvious
that a majority of them will be pleased by recent Council statements
that this possibility is no longer under consideration. The limited UK
experience of the two companies in this field may have been a factor
in residents’ dislike of the commercial option, together with the
restricted competition which this implies. The very recent entry of Essex
County Council into this area may herald a reduction in the competition
problem in the future, as local authorities with a high reputation for
their library services seek to capitalise on this. In addition, to many
people, a profit made by a local authority which is used for the benefit
of its residents is preferable to a profit made by a company for the
benefit of its shareholders.
References:
Ref. 1: Inquiry into the Public Library Service Provided by Wirral Metropolitan
Borough Council
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100407120701/http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/wirral_local_inquiry.pdf
Ref. 2: Using Surveys for Consultation, February 2005 (The Market Research
Soc. and The Local Authorities Research & Intelligence Association),
http://www.marketresearch.org.uk/standards/downloads/revised/active/using_surveys_final.pdf?SESSID=0iafs68ns5ppqmd91fp2jegsj0
Ref. 3: Market Research Society Code of Conduct
http://www.mrs.org.uk/standards/downloads/Code%20of%20Conduct%202010.pdf?SESSID=5aoh4ugacbbebrditrjanvbdi2
|
CPLUG
Seminar 
